Why medical SEO?

Nowadays more and more patients are searching for their next doctor online. Google recently conducted a study and found that over 80% of doctors’ patients use search engines to research online before scheduling an appointment with a doctor. 44% of patients who researched hospitals on a mobile device scheduled an appointment. But what does that mean? It’s quite simple: The better your medical SEO, the more patients you get. For example, patients searching for an orthopedic surgeon in Miami will likely Google “orthopedic surgeon miami”. They are then likely to call one of the practices on the first page of results. This is where SEO comes in. Doctors need to ensure that their website is appearing on the first page of Google search results for relevant searches. So if your practice is to succeed in the modern healthcare arena, then it needs to position its website to come top of Google’s search results for relevant keywords, such as “orthopedic surgeon + your city” and “orthopedic surgery + your city”.

SEO can increase your share of private pay patients. Private pay patients are not restricted by their Managed Care Organization (MCO). They are free to choose whichever doctor they want. This is why – instead of going to their MCO’s website to choose a doctor, they will likely use Google instead. If you want your orthopedic practice to get a share of this private pay business in today’s competitive marketing environment – and definitely in tomorrow’s – then you need to position your practice’s website to appear on the first page of Google results.

SEO for Doctors – is Organic SEO better than Adwords?

In order to answer this question, let us just clarify the difference between Organic SEO and Adwords. Adwords is when you pay Google for your practice’s website to appear as one of the four advertisements at the top of the Google search results page. By contrast, Organic SEO is positioning your website to appear in the real search results (as one of the 10 search results below the ads). Now to answer the question: The short answer is that both of them have their advantages. Adwords allows your practice to immediately be at the top of the page, however it comes at a cost. Firstly, it can be very expensive – especially if the keywords you are targeting have high levels of competition. Secondly, as soon as you stop paying Google, your ads will stop appearing. Organic SEO, on the other hand, is a more affordable and more long term strategy. Your practice’s website can be positioned to be top of the real search results on Google, so that patients are genuinely finding the most relevant practice for their needs. Furthermore, organic SEO is longer lasting than Adwords. Once at the top of Google, it will likely stay there for several months (and if SEO services are continued then it can stay there indefinitely). Plus – best of all – it is more affordable. Red Castle’s SEO for doctors package is very affordable and has proven to be very cost effective in terms of providing many more patients than the monthly cost of services. If you are interested in strategically positioning your practice for the long term trend (that more and more patients will find their next doctor online), then organic SEO is something you should seriously consider.

Medical SEO for Doctors – How to decide which keywords to choose?

Red Castle typically includes 10 keywords in our SEO for doctors campaigns. But how do we decide which 10 keywords to select? Firstly, we make sure that the keywords are actually being used. After all, there is no point being top of Google for keywords which patients are not searching for! Google Adwords offers a free Keyword Planner Tool, which can help with this. Alternatively, Google Trends can also tell you the rough search volume for keywords. Secondly, we select keywords which correctly identify the specific services you offer. For example, if you are an orthopedic surgeon, then we may include keywords for the particular surgery for which you would like to increase your volume of patients. Furthermore, to avoid competing with doctors across the world, we recommend that keywords include your geographical area (usually the nearest city and/or county). Here is a set of example (orthopedic) keywords below:

orthopedics + your city

orthopedics + your county

orthopedic surgeon + your city

orthopedic surgeon + your county

orthopedic + your body part of specialty + surgeon + your city

orthopedic + your body part of specialty + surgeon + your county

orthopedic doctor + your city

orthopedic doctor + your county

Please note that the Latin spelling “orthopaedic” is deliberately not used, as the number of people who search for this is far less than the number of people who search for “orthopedic”.

How do you measure the success of the SEO for doctors campaigns?

Red Castle provides monthly reports, so that our doctors (clients) can clearly track the performance of the SEO campaign. Most importantly, the reports include the position of the keywords and the position change over time. For example, perhaps at the beginning your keyword “orthopedic surgeon Miami’ was in 89th position on Google, but 3 months later it is in 2nd place. Secondly, we also include other useful data, such as website traffic and the source of this traffic. Tracking the traffic source is important, as it allows us to see where prospective patients are finding your website. Is it via social media? Or Google? Or from other sources? By closely monitoring this we can demonstrate how positioning your practice on the first page of Google greatly increases traffic to your website via Google.

How much does Medical SEO for doctors cost?

Our Medical SEO packages are much cheaper than the average Google Adwords campaign. For a full list of our packages and pricing, please scroll down to the bottom of our homepage or Contact Us Today to find out how your practice can start increasing its number of online patient referrals via our Medical SEO campaigns.

What other Online Marketing Strategies can help boost my SEO and Online Referrals?

Wondering which Social Media channel is best for Florida physicians? Is it Twitter or Facebook? The simple answer is: there is no such a thing as one best channel. The best way is to promote your practice is through every possible channel! We can help increase your practice’s online exposure and referrals by connecting your website with the most popular social media services like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, FourSquare, Google+ and others! Social Media can be done in collaboration with Search Engine Optimization, which greatly helps to improve your website’s position on the Google Rankings.

What’s the end result? In short, it results in more patients. Specifically, our medical SEO optimization will expose you to the target populations you want to reach, significantly boosting traffic to your site. And not just any traffic – it will be prospective patients who are looking for the medical services you offer, which translates into a much higher conversion rate from browsing to picking up the phone and making an appointment with your practice.

Over 93% of all Americans now own a mobile phone, according to the 2013 reports of Pew Research Center over two-thirds of cell phone owners now use their phone to go online and the tendency is increasing. That gives you an unimaginable potential audience! According to Forrester Research 42 percent of retailers’ email messages were opened by consumers on their smartphones and 17 percent were opened on tablets. If you want to put that data is numbers – nearly three out of every five email marketing messages were opened on a mobile device. It’s easy, effective and inexpensive!

Or in other words – What are local people saying about your Florida Medical practice? This is the most complicated and developed review of your practice. Your online reputation is the result of blog posts written about you, an uncountable number of medical forums, customer reviews, industry reviews, comments written by your ex-employees and many other factors.Can you imagine that you only have 10 reviews on the internet and 8 of them are not very positive? How is that affecting your potential number of new patient appointments? How you are perceived by your local population?

Online reputation management for your Florida medical practice can be quite time consuming and ongoing. New posts appear all the time and need to be monitored closely to avoid any potential damage to your practice’s reputation. Ask us today about how we Monitor – Promote – Suppress – and Recover your medical practice.

62% of Patients Now Research their Next Doctor ONLINE. Is your WEBSITE creating a good First Impression?
We believe your website is a direct reflection of your practice. We believe an amazing practice deserves an amazing website. 62% of patients now find their next doctor online – is your practice’s website creating a good first impression for them?